Samsung has had some success in the past with exclusive apps and it looks like they’re continuing that model by partnering up with the most famous active athlete on the planet. Their Galaxy-exclusive software hopes to hone in on a younger demographic who wants exclusive content unavailable on other platforms. Their last major partnership was with Jay Z and featured an exclusive look at his Magna Carta album before it was avaible for purchase to the public. The “LeBron” app is an intimate look at the life of the superstar on his way to a third championship run. The app is broken down into 4 categories; Athlete: Photos and videos of his workouts, daily life as an athlete including his routine for getting ready for games, post-game remarks and more NBA Playoffs: LeBron’s season and career highlights along with live scores from the Heat’s playoff games Style: Photos and videos of his classic style, sneakers of the day, off-the-court looks, a radio that plays his favorite songs and more. Journey: Insight into what fuels LeBron off the court including, his charitable work with his Foundation, as well as his home life with his wife and kids. The app is available more »

Панорама Марса – марсоход Curiosity: 613-ый марсианский день in out-of-this-world Sure, you might never be able to set foot on Mars (although never say never) but now, with this amazing panorama created by Andrew Bodrov using 138 individual shots that he stitched together will show you what it might look like.

We’re giving away SOL Republic Relay earbuds for free! RELAYS is a true crossover headphone. Whether you’re running for a train or training for a run, you can enjoy the fit of a sports headphone with all the sound and style you need to keep up with you all day, no matter what you’re doing. Win SOL Republic Relay’s From RSVLTS! in Contests on LockerDome

Back in January we published a story called The 50 Most Popular People on Instagram of 2014 and in the months since it has gone mega viral all over the web. To narrow things down a bit we’ll focus on the women of Instagram. As you’ll see from the list the Jenner/Kardashian family has a dominance over Instagram that is nearly unmatchable.

Wearable tech; it’s fast becoming an industry in its own right. So it’s to be expected that there’s been a fair amount of chatter about the launch of Google Glass. But is the buzz really justified? If you’re not turned on by all the geeky talk about specs and functions, is there room for Google Glass in your life? Having played with it, I’m looking past the technology to give you a summary of what Google Glass gives you on a more practical level.

What’s that? You just had one of those Taco Bell breakfast tacos and though you weren’t that impressed you still felt the need to share it with everyone along with multiple pictures? That’s cool, I guess. Astronaut Rick Mastracchio tweeted pictures from his spacewalk, but I’m really glad you found time to retweet a funny picture from George Takei that everyone saw on Reddit the day before. Seriously though, Rick Mastracchio is aboard the International Space Station and his incredible tweets give us terrestrial folks a glimpse of life in Low Earth Orbit. Follow him @AstroRM and feel bad about posting pics of yourself wearing a trucker hat 10 years ago for #tbt.

Remember when those little cassette tapes with the wire that plugged into a portable CD player made it so that you didn’t have to update your car’s stereo system in the 90s? Well the Rocki Play cheaply and easily converts your car stereo, or any speakers with a 3.5mm or RCA port, into a WiFi system. Originally launched as a Kickstarter project that raised over $200,000, the Rocki Play is now available for just $49 and comes with 7 different colored skins so you can choose one that best matches your decor. How does it work? Just plug the device into the audio jack of your stereo and set it up using the Rocki app on your android phone. An iOS version is also in the works, but for now Apple users can use the Rocki via AirPlay. Order yours today at Rocki.

Have you ever wished you were like Sherman and could travel through time with a WABAC machine? A new feature in Google Maps for desktop allows you to see street views from different moments in time and you don’t even need a smug, talking dog like Mr. Peabody picking on you the whole time. Using images from as far back as 2007, you can now use Google Maps to view the construction of epic edifices, such as New York City’s One World Trade Center, or the destructive forces of nature, such as Christchurch, New Zealand after the 2011 earthquake. You can even use it just to get an idea of seasonal weather when planning a vacation. If nothing else, it’s another way to spend hours looking at Google Maps and dreaming of the world outside your dismal cubicle. You know what a 2007 Street View of your office would like? The exact same, except you would look a tad more fit. Head over to Google Maps for more info then start planning your escape.

Back in the 1970s, when our government actually encouraged innovation and gave money to scientific endeavors, NASA conducted three space colony summer studies at NASA Ames. These artistic renderings were the result, illustrating toroidal colonies and Bernal spheres containing populations of 10,000 and cylindrical colonies housing over 1 million. It’s easy to dismiss these works as fantastic notions of science fiction, but ideas need to start somewhere. And it’s a refreshing reminder that our government is capable of inspiring such innovation, or at least was capable not too long ago. Learn more about space settlements at NASA.

Samsung is determined to make a cannonball splash this time around with the release of their Galaxy S5. The Korean based company, who’s primary focus is on “The Next Big Thing” may have just found it. Their newest edition to the Galaxy S line is a 5.1-inch, 1080p AMOLED display which is vivid to say the least. However it’s also thin and light, weighing in at 5.1 ounces and 8.1 millimeters deep. The back is made of a easy grip perforated faux leather that makes handling the phone with one hand a little easier for someone without Andre the Giant size hands. The key distinguishing features, however, come in the form of an updated 16-megapixel rear-facing camera with a much faster auto focus thanks to a second sensor. The camera options are out of this world. A new great feature offered in the bevy of camera options is the “virtual tour” option that essentially puts a Google Street View type journey at the tip of your fingers. Another never before seen option is the HDR realtime photo option which let’s you see a preview of HDR quality photos before you actually take it, selective photo is another option that will have Instagrammers going more »

If you’ve done any online browsing for a new TV recently you’ll see that SmartTVs are all the rage with capabilities to connect to your WiFi, allowing easy access to a plethora of content across platforms like Netflix, HBO Go, Hulu, YouTube and more. If your current TV doesn’t allow you to enjoy the spoils of the latest entertainment technology then it’s time for an upgrade. At only $899.00 the VIZIO E-Series 60” delivers brilliant picture quality while allowing you to instantly enjoy the latest hit movies, TV shows, music and even more premium apps straight from the Internet to your TV. Stop by your local Best Buy for a walk through, we guarantee there is not another 50″+ Smart TV in this class that can compare. VIZIO was so confident their product was superior that their allowed us to use a E-Series 60” for our Final Four viewing party at the new office. We paired it with a VIZIO 54” 3.0 Home Theater Sound Bar and the visuals and audio from the big games filled the room with ease. All in all, if you’re looking for a crisp 60″ inch Smart TV you could spend $1,700+ or opt for the $899.00 VIZIO more »

In a move that will fire up provacy watchdogs across America Facebook announced that users will soon be able to receive notices on their mobile app when they’re near friends, signaling an effort by the online social network to play a bigger role in real-world interactions reports the WSJ. TechCrunch has a deep analysis of how Nearby Friends works, how it was built, its privacy implications, how it impacts the competitive landscape, and its long-term opportunities for Facebook. But here’s the tl;dr version: Nearby Friends was built by the Glancee location sharing app team led by Andrea Vaccari that Facebook acquired in 2012. It adds a list of nearby friends to Facebook’s iOS and Android apps. It will also send notifications if you come within a short distance of a friend, and if someone shares their precise location with you you’ll see it on a map. Vaccari tells me “the idea is to make it really easy to discover when someone is around you, and meet up and spend time together.” It wants to facilitate those serendipitous meetups where you run into a friend and end up having a meal or hanging out together. It’s a meatspace manifestation of Facebook’s mission to more »

Google is now allowing any US resident over the age of 18 to sign up for Google Glass. They haven’t specified how many slots are open in the Explorer Program, but, like with anything tech-related, the offer is bound to be snatched up quickly. Sure, we all say how much we hate those Google Glass-wearing geeks undoubtedly recording our every move as they stare at us in Starbucks and on the subway, but plenty of us are also envious of the cachet the device bestows upon its wearer. I mean, I’m already staring at people, I might as well have the latest technology to maximize my ogling. But to get that cachet, you need cash. Google Glass will cost you $1500. If you have that sort of money to fork over to become king of the nerds, head over to the Glass Explorer Sign-Up and become an Explorer before it’s too late. Don’t mind me, I’ll just be in a dark corner pretending not to take pictures of you with my flip phone.

On April 12, the US Navy christened its lates ship, the USS Zumwalt. It is the first of 3 ships in the new DDG category of destroyers, featuring the latest technology at a cost of over $3 billion each. Initially offering two 155mm AGSs equivalent to 12 155mm howitzers, it is anticipated that one AGS will be switched out with the Navy’s awesome new rail gun beginning in the 2020s. And despite being 40% larger than the ubiquitous Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the new class of DDG is incredibly stealthy. The radar signature of the ship is akin to a fishing boat and the sound levels are about the same as the common Los Angeles-class submarines. All 3 DDG ships should be launched by the end of the decade, ushering in a new era of Naval warfare.

It’s pretty evident that walking on a surface area with completely different gravity might not be the breeziest of walks, but astronauts are people too. It’s just so hard to get those moon dust stains out of those million dollar suits.

April 12, 1961 marked the monumental occasion of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s first manned spaceflight. On that day 20 years later, NASA launched the first space shuttle. To commemorate the importance of April 12, Yuri’s Night was established in 2001 to encourage parties and gatherings aimed at entertaining while celebrating these milestones and encouraging a new generation of space explorers. In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight, over 100,000 people attended 567 official events in 75 countries on all 7 continents. If you still haven’t made plans, find a party near you on the official Yuri’s Night site or use these photos from past events to give you ideas on planning your own. Check out more Yuri’s Night photos on Flickr.

Nostalgia is a vicious mindset—one that makes the reminiscing mind longing for days past. In the entertainment industry, musing retroactively can be especially powerful with the source of such past-longing being right in front of the ruminator—an electronic landmark from two decades ago. And, given the aforementioned industry’s obsession with rehashing the past in a nicer package—this exercise is seemingly more Dusting off the Nintendo 64, the Super Nintendo, the Sega Genesis, or the Sony Playstation; RSVLTS has come to the following conclusion—some games are simply too awesome to be trapped within the confines of their primitive technology. Hence, the gaming industry has a unique opportunity to make the past more tangible. But, what the ten best opportunities? Well, RSVLTS is here to countdown the top 10 Retro Games that deserve a full remake—not just an HD re-master.

On April 9, 1959, NASA announced the original seven men chosen to be astronauts for the manned spaceflights of the Mercury program. Dubbed the Mercury 7, the group was made up of Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton. NASA originally planned for an open competition to find its first astronauts, but President Eisenhower, ever a stick in the mud, insisted that they all be test pilots. Due to the size of the Mercury capsule, candidates could be no taller than 5’11” and weigh less than 180 pounds. Other requirements were age under 40, a bachelor’s degree, and at least 1500 hours of flying time. More than 500 initially applied, and after rounds of testing, both physical and mental, the group was whittled down to 18. The final 7 were chosen because of their genius-level IQs and their ability to function both as a team and solo. Between them, the 7 flew on all classes of manned NASA spacecraft from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs. With the exception, of Gus Grissom, who was tragically killed in the 1967 Apollo 1 fire, they all lived long lives well into retirement more »

New York auction house Bonhams is having a space history sale today with incredible artifacts from US and Soviet space missions. With the ever dwindling budgets of space exploration programs, these items could be the closest you ever get to space. For just $30,000 or so, you could even own a stowage strap encrusted with actual lunar dust! Check out Bonhams for the entire catalog and watch as these awesome artifacts get snatched up for more money than you could ever afford.

Why did it take so long for this to be invented? We’ve been air drying our hands for years now, but when it comes to our bodies, we are still using stinky old bath towels. Finally, someone has figured out how to harness the power of air so we can dry our entire bodies after a shower. Sure, it’s great to not use towels from a sanitary standpoint because of all the bacteria, but the prospect of not having to wash towels all the time is even better! Also, there is a scale built in so you don’t have to worry about a bunch of devices crowding your bathroom floor. The Body Dryer team is still raising money for the initial run and you can contribute at Indiegogo. The device is expected to retail for $250 but early investors can secure one for just $150 or four for $425. What are you waiting for? Place your order and stick it to those fat cats at Big Towel.

It’s hard to believe that this summer will mark 8 years since Twitter first debuted. In that time, there have been many changes in how users behave. For instance, the average number of tweets increased drastically for years then leveled off and began to fall, now staying at about 20. Where people tweet from, what they tweet about, and how often they change their handles has also changed over the years. Check out these 12 charts and see how the history of Twitter sums up.

The trailer for Mario Kart 8 was recently released and oh how it has changed since the Mario Kart of N64. The newest addition to the game is one of some serious nostalgia, a replica of the original Rainbow Road course. Yes, the course that essentially made you the man if won. A new Rainbow Road course will also be featured in the game. Mario Kart 8 will also feature glider karts and underwater levels, which were featured in 3DS game Mario Kart 7, as well as brand-new anti-gravity courses. Is one game worth the $224.90 price tag of a Wii U. You bet your red shells it is. Available May 30th.

Amazon is giving smart TV a go. They announced the Fire TV, a small television set-top box for streaming movies, TV shows and music, like Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Prime and iHeartRadio. The remote is Bluetooth activated and is very similar to an Apple TV remote, except it also included a voice activated search feature. Fire is powered by a quad-core processor with a dedicated GPU and 2GB of memory, with the ability to play games via it’s gamer controller. Fire users can see information about what’s on the TV using Amazon’s “X-Ray” feature, a unique extra that let’s users see music lyrics and interesting tid-bits about actors and shows. Amazon’s Fire TV costs $99—same as an Apple TV, but much more expensive than market dominated Roku.

Google, Apple, and Roku have a new competitor for streaming content on TV. Amazon has officially launched their Fire TV set-top box, touted as being three times more powerful than Apple TV. The $99 device, with a remote that allows voice searching, also doubles as a casual gaming system. But will Fire TV have enough software at launch to get you to switch?

These GIFs of cities at night as seen from space are blended with maps of the pictured regions to give you a better idea of exactly where you are looking. Obviously, the brighter sections will correlate with bigger cities, giving a better impression of population density. The amount of empty, dark space in Australia is incredible when viewed this way, but even more interesting is North Korea’s lack of light. Even Pyongyang, a city of over 2.5 million, barely registers any light, illustrating a lack of resources rather than population density.

The future of food has arrived and it is the Foodini. The first real food 3D printer, Foodini allows you to take fresh ingredients, jam them in a capsule, and turn the paste into ravioli, gnocchi, dinosaurs, or whatever else you can think up. The Kickstarter campaign has just started and they are already half-way to their goal, with 27 days remaining, so chances are pretty good that the Foodini will be a mass-produced reality soon. The device, which comes with 5 reusable capsules, is expected to retail for about $1300, but through the Kickstarter campaign, you can reserve one from the first mass-production run, expected in January of 2015, for just $999. If you’re a bit more cautious, you can head on over to the Foodini website and sign up for an email alert when it becomes available. If they figure out how to print Oreo O’s, they’ll make a fortune.

Yesterday, Facebook bought a virtual reality company called Oculus VR. Shortly afterward, the internet exploded. If you’ve been closely following Oculus and their Oculus Rift VR headset over the past couple of years, you probably already have a ton of thoughts and opinions on all this. But what if you haven’t really been paying attention? What’s the deal, why is everyone so worked up? Didn’t virtual reality already happen in the 90s? Don’t worry, we’re here to help. Below is our explanation of what’s going on, and why Facebook just paid a cool couple billion for a company that makes a virtual reality headset.

The Big Bang Fair, a celebration of science, technology, engineering, and math for young people, was recently held in the UK. One of the highlights of the show was when Cubestormer 3, a robot made from Legos with a smartphone brain, broke the world record for fastest time in solving a Rubik’s cube. The previous record, held by Cubestormer 2, was 5.27 seconds, which was shattered by more than 2 seconds with the new record being 3.253 seconds. The Cubestormers are built with the single purpose of solving Rubik’s cubes. The smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy S4, acts as the eyes and brain, examining the cube and figuring out the moves which are then relayed to the Lego Mindstorms robot. And just in case you were wondering how humans compare, the fastest record was set last year at 5.55 seconds. All hail our Lego robot overlords.

Japan, consider yourself served. Those creepy Germans have managed to overtake you in sexualized technology with their robot pole dancers unveiled at CeBIT, the world’s largest computer expo held in Hanover this week. The robots were originally designed by artist Giles Walker for an exhibition, but the Germans had the ingenuity to make an app to control them and, as the engineer in the video puts it, “we change them to get bigger breasts.” The robots cost about $39,500 each, but think of it as an investment since you can keep their tips when you have them put on a show!

A research team at Stanford University’s PrakashLab has developed Foldscope, a microscope that is printed and folded from a single sheet of flat paper. It costs less than a dollar in parts yet can magnify over 2000x with sub-micron resolution. It weighs less than two nickels, can fit in your pocket, require no outside power, and can survive a fall from 3 stories. Different designs of Foldscope will be disease-specific, to aid workers in areas where general-purpose instruments are not a viable solution. In third world countries where common diseases can take weeks to be diagnosed, the Foldscope will revolutionize the medical field and save countless lives. The team is currently looking for 10,000 beta-testers for the Foldscope from all different walks of life, whether you’re a scientist, a tinkerer, or just someone who’s curious. For more info and to sign up, check out Foldscope.

A strong solar wind coupled with a few surprise CME impacts help spark some beautiful Aurora across much of Canada and the Northern US. The video is made up of around 3500 photos shot overnight on Feb 19 and 20, 2014 in Kananaskis, Canmore, and Banff Alberta.

BBC has put together a really cool interactive infographic to give you an idea of the vastness of space. Scrolling the length of the page will take you all the way through the solar system with facts along the way. If your index finger consider can survive the arduous journey, you justt might have what it takes to become an astronaut. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.

At 302 feet, the recently unveiled Airlander is the world’s largest aircraft. The helium-filled airship began as a joint project for the US Army from Hybrid Air Vehicles and Northrup Grumman, but after budget cuts last year, the vehicle was headed to the scrap yard. The Army offered to sell it to HAV for $44 million, but HAV didn’t have the cash. They eventually settled on $301,000, less than 1% of what the US Army paid for it. Hmmm…suddenly these budget problems are making a lot of sense. With the project back in HAV’s hands, it was renamed the Airlander and the prototype was re-unveiled in Britain. No longer an Army spy-drone, HAV now advertise its utility for humanitarian aid, providing communications, broadcasting sporting events, and surveillance. The Airlander can stay in the air for up to 3 weeks, carry loads up 11 tons, and set down on land, water, or ice. An even longer passenger version is planned for next year. And the coolest thing about the HAV Airlander? One of the investor’s is Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden and pilot of the band’s jet, “Ed Force One.”